We often talk about your brand and how important it is for your business because it’s often what encourages a customer to buy from you, rather than someone else.
The importance of a professional brand cannot be underestimated, which is why it’s such a big part of any business marketing strategy.
Branding is like a secret, psychological weapon of persuasion that can be used to accomplish many things. The top four include:
Branding can make you stand out from your competition.
Take two bike shops. Both sell exactly the same types of bikes, but one business markets itself as a family-friendly fun ride, and the other calls itself adventure on wheels. Where will parents shop? Where will the thrill-seekers go? When you establish a brand, you immediately distinguish yourself apart from everyone else. The trick is knowing where in the market you’d like to be and who you’d like to attract.
Branding can enable you to group multiple services and products under one cohesive banner.
A pharmacy does many things. They fill prescriptions, give beauty makeovers, sell gifts and give health advice. So many services, so many products, and yet they are all grouped under the one pharmacy name. They don’t have to spell everything out. We know what they do because their branding has already told us.
Branding will help customers to instantly remember who your business is and what it offers.
How many children automatically salivate when they see the Golden Arches? How many of us know where Everyone Gets A Bargain? That’s branding in action. A familiar logo, jingle, slogan or even font, will tell us in an instant what the business is and what it’s selling. You can’t buy that kind of instant recall. You need to build it up slowly and consistently.
Branding will convey a sense of emotion that customers will respond to – trust, friendship, sincerity, joy.
Do you associate the IRD with joy? Probably not. You may feel a host of other feelings when you see the IRD logo. But it is just a logo, just a colour, just a font. And yet seeing it will set off a reaction within you. Good branding evokes a feeling within a customer, a feeling that will spur them to buy.
Branding is an important part of establishing your company’s identity within the marketplace. In order for branding to work effectively, it needs to be coherent and cohesive across your entire business. From sign writing and stationery, to web design and social media marketing, to uniforms and visual prompts like display stands and posters, good branding is a good investment.
Rolling out a branding strategy takes time, and it all starts with the initial design. Creating the right brand identity at the outset will help you streamline the process.
Design Garage has extensive experience in creating professional business branding for an all-inclusive marketing strategy. Take a look through their portfolio and see the visual imaging they’ve already produced. It may spark off some inspiration of your own!
And when you’re ready to talk branding, give Casie at Design Garage a call and see what they can do for you.
